This project investigates the intertwined human and environmental geographies of borderland volcanic areas in Latin America and East Africa. It combines human geographical theories of the earth with approaches from science and technology studies to think about volcanic places and spaces undergoing rapid environmental change, and seeks to integrate new theoretical ideas with disaster risk reduction in developing contexts.
The project builds on an assemblage approach to understanding disasters as hybrid human-physical-environmental ruptures. It seeks to interrogate the conceptual spaces between vulnerability and hazard in approaches to disasters, understanding that scientific imaginations and those of communities may differ over small spatial areas, with significant impacts on risk.
The project team consists of Dr Amy Donovan, Dr Julie Morin, Dr Elisabeth Gallant, Dr Rory Walshe and Ms Anindita Biswas (administrator). They will be joined by Carolyn Smith (PhD student) in Oct 2020.